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50 years ago, a bomb exploded at the 16th street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Four young girls were killed in the blast. It would take 14 years before the first Klansman was tried and convicted in the bombing. Robert Chambliss was found guilty of his part in the attack.

Arts & Life

12:46 pm

Wed November 14, 2012

Birmingham's public library has a new resource about the city's civil rights history: Letters written from prison by one of three Ku Klux Klansmen convicted in a deadly church bombing that killed four black girls.

The library obtained the letters written to and by Robert Chambliss and opened them for public use on Wednesday, the 35th anniversary of his trial.

Archives director Jim Baggett says Chambliss never admits any wrongdoing in the letters.

A retired agent says the FBI obtained the letters from a niece of Chambliss and gave them to the library.